Although employers are held responsible for workplace health and safety issues, employees are also expected to take safety measures at work. Workplace violence, such as discrimination and sexual harassment, is beyond the full control of employers. You can either continue to be a victim or deal with them once and for all. Here’s a helpful post from Scott Roberts: “Personal Safety at Work.”

Ignorance is sometimes the cause of many workplace accidents. Knowledge after all is the first step to prevention. As employers, it’s one of your responsibilities to keep your employees informed of safety measures. This is not just for their own sake, but also for keeping your company productive and profitable. Anya Baldwin of Chron.com enumerates The Top Five Types of Workplace Hazards.

The question of how to increase productivity in your company is one of quality versus quantity. If you need to increase your unit production by 20 per day, do you try to squeeze the extra work out of your current employees or do you hire more? It turns out that you may be able to get the work you need out of your current employees without doing any squeezing at all! Investing in health and safety education for your workers will naturally lead to greater productivity in a way that hiring new employees cannot.

Consider the psychological health of your workers. When they bring stress from home into the office, employees can be distracted from work. Painful life events can occupy the forefront of their minds, making less room for work related thoughts. Safety concerns can also be distracting. Investing in psychological counseling and safety measures for your workers will increase their peace of mind; with less distracting them, their productivity will increase.

Poor physical health also affects performance on the job. Physical health problems can lead to more sick days. Also, an unhealthy body often leads to the psychological issues listed above. When employees are experiencing mental or physical pain, low motivation and frustration lower their productivity. New hires are just as susceptible to low motivation and frustration as current employees. It makes sense, therefore, to put systems in place which will help all employees have peace of mind, and body, before you look at hiring new people. If you do, you will get more work out of your current employees, as well as the new hires you actually do need.

Keeping the workplace safe and conducive for labor is one of the top priorities and obligations of employers to their employees, in addition to fair compensation. Sadly, the fact remains that neglecting (or at least, providing inadequate) workplace safety measures is a lot cheaper and, not to mention, convenient, to employers than adhering to the set standards. This can only work alright for so long - until someone gets hurt or, in the worst case, dies.

In fact, a lot of companies get sued every year due to workplace safety violations and casualties. The state laws together with the policies set by OSHA protect workers from such violations. Fines and sanctions are common punishments for safety violations, the most grave of which is probably getting the company shut down. How far would employers go, just to be able to save on their expenditure and increase their profit margin?

Although it is far from becoming a trend, a number of companies and industries are turning employee-friendly, taking measures to provide the safest workplace possible. OSHA has been acknowledging such positive workplace attitude and safety measures, even handing out recognition and awards to deserving companies. More of these role models are needed in today’s society - employers owe it to their employees to give them the fairest of working conditions in exchange of their services. Learn more about the voluntary safety measures that have been put in place by these companies from Michelle Chen’s article, “When Safety Becomes Voluntary: Workplace Self-Policing Program Under Scrutiny.”